I was the consultant to the Washington State Access to Justice Principles back in the early days of this century.

Now a process is underway to update and improve those principles, which were issued by the State Supreme Court in the form of an Order (see below link).  It takes no brilliance to know that risks and opportunities have changed in the last thirteen years!  Among them are the movements for nonlawyer practice, simplification, remote service delivery, triage and 100% access to justice.

Here is the call for comments and ideas passed on by Claudia Johnson:

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WA State is revising its Access to Justice Technology Principles

The Tech Committee of the Access to Justice Commission here in Washington State is collecting feedback to redo the Tech Access to Justice Principles  here in WA State.

As you know–our Principles  were issued in 2004 and adopted through a Court Order. Their release and adoption lead many others to release similar standards. https://accesstojustice.net/2011/09/20/california-courts-seek-comment-on-draft-principles-on-technology-and-access-to-justice/

Considering that so much time has elapsed, and how technology has improved and changed and become part of delivering legal services, we are now revising them to include the new ways technology is being used to increase access to justice.

This process started last Fall of 2016–a the 2016 Access to Justice Symposium in September 2016. http://www.atjweb.org/technology-justice-symposium/

Based on input at that meeting and to continue this important work the working group has created a survey to collect feedback on how the Principles can be improved and clarified, so that they can serve us well into the future.

We solicit feedback from all who are interested in the overlap between technology and legal services delivery. We request that before answering the feedback, to please the current Principles here to get a sense of how they are organized and what they cover: http://www.atjweb.org/read-the-principles/

And then answer the survey here:http://www.atjweb.org/atj-site-survey/

Once we conclude the feedback collection stage–we will reconvene and start drafting the revisions. The group welcomes examples from other states or countries, also information on best practices, examples, areas of concern, information on case law or ethics decisions, or state bar rules, and anything else people think it might be helpful for the group to consider in reviewing the Principles.

Thank you for helping us keep the Principles relevant and up to date,